Int´l Day for Failure today

The International Day for Failure will be observed on Friday in the country with the slogan of “seeking ways to live with fear of failure”.

The Experimental Finland team of the Prime Minister’s Office is organising the event Herozerohero where people can openly talk about their personal view on success and failure, said a government press release.

As the title of the event suggests, no one is a hero or a zero all the time. Instead everybody is always moving between the two poles. Getting stuck in either extreme creates problems.

“Fear of failure is one of the key factors blocking us from trying out and taking in new creative solutions. If we genuinely want to experiment with new ideas, we cannot always know beforehand the outcomes. This means that at some point we will fail, and then we can learn from our failures. Tolerating failure and living with the fear of failure are essential skills in all development work,” said Ira Alanko, Project Manager of Experimental Finland at the Prime Minister’s Office.

Speakers at the event are writer SirpaKähkönen, CEO of Finlayson JukkaKurttila, activist and conservationist Sini Harkki, actor, director and scriptwriter Anna Paavilainen, Minister of Local Government and Public Reforms AnuVehviläinen, and Director of the Helsinki City Theatre and Kari Arffman.

Brain researcher Katri Saarikivi will be commenting on the addresses. Video messages from the Finnish Cultural Institutes in Estonia, Japan and the United Kingdom will give perspective on how people outside Finland feel about the fear of failure.